Back-to-work brainlessness

2009-01-08 11:19

Georgina Guedes

On Monday afternoon, I had a nap. The necessity for this was brought on by a combination of post-holiday exhaustion, spring cleaning fatigue and pregnancy.

At some point, I was dragged from my slumber by the trilling of my office phone, but saw no reason to get out of bed for it, as the office door was locked and we had forgotten to collect the keys from my mother's house where we had left them for the duration of our time out of Johannesburg.

"If it's urgent, they'll call on my cell," I reasoned.

My cell rang. It was an overeager client who was calling me even though I was home two days earlier than I had originally planned to be. I did my best to sound awake (I wasn't) and intelligent (I usually am), but failed dismally I think when I forgot the name of his partner with whom I've been having regular contact for about three months.

The next interlude in my back-to-work calendar was an appointment on Wednesday morning. When I referred to this meeting in my diary, I noticed that I had another meeting scheduled for later in the afternoon. To the best of my recollection, that meeting was actually supposed to take place on Thursday, so I phoned my client to confirm that I hadn't completely lost the plot.

Lost it

The plot was lost alright, but I don't think it was I who misplaced it. Of the two other people who were supposed to be at the meeting, the one was surprised to learn that any such thing had been scheduled and the other failed to get back to me at all. We rescheduled for what I suspect was supposed to be the original time anyway - Thursday morning.

Thursday morning, we met at their offices, very happy to see one another and then sat, pens poised, to try to remember what it was we needed to discuss. Issues that seemed pressing at the close of 2008 had evaporated from our brains, and between us we couldn't remember one of the points that we'd so urgently needed to cover.

Instead, we chatted about the brainlessness that has characterised our return to Johannesburg this year. My two clients had covered themselves from head to toe in printer toner the previous day.

Another woman who works in their office had come back to work the day before the office opened, and arrived halfway through our meeting thinking it was still a day earlier, then realised that if it was Thursday, she was due at another meeting, phoned to apologise for being late, only to discover that the person she was meeting with was still on leave.

And then, when I was on my way home from the meeting, I realised that since it was Thursday, I had missed my deadline for my News24 column. Fortunately, I had more fodder for the topic of back-to-work brainlessness.

I don't know if it's the heat, or the exhaustion from the negativity of 2008, but 2009 seems to be off to a particularly silly start. It seems that people's brains are resistant to being back in the office, and are doing their utmost to recreate the glorious state of atrophy that comes from five days solid of reading World Without End alternated with staring at the horizon and eating Christmas leftovers.

Doubtless we'll all survive the first week and be back to our regular, astute selves by the second.

Georgina Guedes is a freelance journalist. She enjoyed World Without End thoroughly.

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